In Romanian (as in most other central and eastern European languages that use the basic Latin script), the unaccented “a” is actually pronounced as we would pronounce the “u” in “cut.” Ergo, as spoken in Romanian it’s pronounced as we would pronounce “crup.”

No one seems to know how it happened, but “crap” is Romanian for “carp.” If you’re familiar with Latin-based languages, you’ll quickly see that that’s the fish-dish part of the menu. So it’s correct in Romanian!

For some reason, carp is very popular all over Romania. I actually have no idea where they get it. The default guess would of course be from the Black Sea; however, that fishery was so wrecked during the course of the 20th century that very little is coming out of there now (until the fish stocks rebuild themselves).

Anyway…. the real hilarity comes when the English language menu doesn’t properly translate “crap” into “carp.” E.g., check out this lunch menu from last summer in Oradea (in far western Romania, near the Hungarian border):

http://www.redstate.com/skanderbeg/files/2009/07/100_1769.jpg

God Bress.